The Wound And The Knife
by lulusgardenfli
Summary: Soda Curtis has a toothache
1. Bite

_warning: reference to suicide_

* * *

Soda Curtis has a tooth ache. But that's not why he's slouching in a green chair _Sports Illustrated _in hands—address barcode removed and opened to an article on Wayne Gretzky and a sport he knows nothing about. Except that hockey screws your teeth more than poverty, sugar and heroin.

Next to him the yellowed light pales toothless compared to the blinding florescence from the ceiling fixture. There are two _T.V. Guides_ in a room with no T.V. The rest of the magazines are on the coffee table or in two wooden racks hooked to the wall. There's a Dixie cup, he takes a sip—a slow one, using his scarred tongue as a funnel, avoiding the left side all together. Otherwise, his tooth hurts like a mother.

The door opens and May is an attempted strangulation compared to the murderous suffocation that August will bring. Still the air conditioner is on full blast and Soda's skin pricks in response. A man in slacks and a faded button down and a woman in a skirt, baggy blouse and large silver belt enter. Soda doesn't look up and tries not to think about his tooth.

The receptionist turns the radio down, greets the couple with a form, a friendly 'good morning' and a white smile promise of better things to come (insurance claim pending).

"You're not Maggie," and the receptionist explains that she's one of the dental assistants and that Maggie is off for the week. Her husband scans the room, perhaps for a T.V., perhaps for Maggie, and finding neither returns to the desk. There are butterscotches. Hard candy, a better alternative to the chewy kind that gets stuck in teeth and keeps this place afloat.

"Oh," the woman says.

The receptionist, who isn't Maggie, who isn't even a receptionist, confirms their name, hands them each a clipboard and informs them that Drs. Johnson and Modi will be with them shortly. They make their way pass the water cooler, pass the kiddie corner, pens in hands.

There's a computer and talks about putting patient files on cd rom—eventually, but for now there are cabinets of cream colored files coded in colored tabs and inside are the charts, insurance papers and marked diagrams –treasure maps of cavities, bridges and dentures.

But Soda isn't watching this, doesn't see the fluid movement of the dental assistant in lavender scrubs as she turns up the radio up.

_Hit me baby one more time._ Ms. Spears demands.

* * *

He is alone in the waiting room when the inner door swings and Anna Nguyen crosses the threshold in grey pants, grey blouse, yawning from the sedative.

Sliding his hands down his thighs and standing up, casually crushing the empty cup in his palm, tossing it in the trash and doesn't bother to watch it bounce off the rim before landing on top of a muffin wrapper.

"You good? Ready to roll?" He's trying to shove his impatience down, but his nerves are screaming. After Anna says yes, folding the instructions into fours before putting it in her purse, he wiggles his toes, half asleep inside thick boots, holds the door open, adjusts his eyes to natural light and checks his watch. It's not even 9:00 yet.

She's the mother of his first born and knows him in ways that he wishes weren't his to claim, but this isn't his apartment or his life and their son is grown, so he stands on the outside doormat while she stands inside and asks her if she wants him to pick up anything from the store, maybe Jell-O. She didn't even want him to take her to the dentist, but Patrick is at work and they told her no public transportation and she's too proud ask anyone else. Soda was able to get the day off from his new job. Now he works with cars, again. So Soda it is.

Her nose scrunches up and he gives the quickest smile, which thanks to his tooth is already a wince.

She looks at him, "would you care to come in?" Knowing the answer she turns her back to him, carefully slides her purse off her shoulder and he shuts the door.

* * *

War stalked Soda Curtis home, spoke with a flat American accent and screamed into the phone: "T.P. ate his gun!"

On hearing the news of Tate Parker's (U.S. Army, Vietnam Vet, Acknowledged Asshole) death he squeezed the receiver, mouth dropped open, heels lifted one-half inch off his linoleum floor and his body followed.

"I'm sorry for calling at this hour…I didn't know…who…" as if her hours still held weight.

She's got nothing to apologize for. And he understood that with a grief so overwhelming there sometimes needed to be a distraction, a valve of release, in her case: phone etiquette. Like Two-Bit and his knife after Dallas.

"I'm so sorry." It contained all the devastation but neither felt any comfort. He asked about a funeral, 'service' is how he phrased it, and told her to call him for anything, anytime. She said goodbye or thank you and hung up. Her dial tone faded but her echo couldn't.

His wife and his daughter looked at him, dark eyebrows knitted in worry. He may have mouthed 'T.P' to Mary. Lifted his neck up over the horizon of Hazer's bedhead and silently over-enunciated the name to the point that after the 'P' his mouth fossilized into an exaggerated grin.

They were in their pajamas and blurry.

Hazer woke up because of the telephone, because she had the best ears in the house even in the middle of the night.

"Go back to bed, Hazer. It's okay." He tells her and works to keep his voice even. He can't shield her from all the bad and kids understand so much more than adults, including their own parents want to acknowledge, but he wants her to have a childhood and not to have her nights stolen by other peoples nightmares.

Mary awakened by her husband's body rising from their bed, the back of his hand off her chest. She had the worst hearing in the house.

The last time he saw T.P face to face… How did he not _know?_

He wiped his eyes. And wiped his knuckles on the jeans he wears as pajamas, they are soft and worn, frayed at the ankles and comfier than real pajama bottoms or sweats. He embraces his wife, holding her close, and when he sees her tears he loves her even more and his thumb rubs against her cheek.

"How…" But looks at her husband, his eyes bleak, his lips parted and starts the sign of the cross and he follows.

At sixteen, grief cried and threw up the beer he hardly drank when his girlfriend's new perfume smelled a little bit too close to his mom's. At seventeen it whipped Darry's truck down the ribbon and saw bodies under the street lights, crumpled and on fire. At nineteen and years afterwards it shot heroin.

He looks at his boots. At eighteen it went to war.

* * *

He's wearing olive Dockers and a white undershirt and removes his boots, takes a few extra seconds to make sure that they're on the inner doormat and don't touch the carpet. And beyond that Mary is his life it's why he and Anna wouldn't work. Life is lived in the banalities and for Soda the thought of needing to make sure his boots are in their proper place day after day is exhausting. But thinks that if they were really meant to be together they would have compromised. Least he would have tried and sometimes he'll let his imagination take over. He doesn't exactly know what that compromise would look like: half the week his boots sprawled all over, the other half of the week standing like soldiers at attention?

"Mind if I lie down?" And when she doesn't he makes his way to the couch to stretch his legs, it feels good, after sitting in the waiting room, after sitting in his truck. The sound of the faucet reminds him he hasn't taken a leak since he woke up and despite the water his throat is parched.

"How's your mouth?" He tosses trying to find a comfortable position, he had helped move her into this apartment, hurt his back after he carried the couch in with Steve's help, the couch too cumbersome and the men too impatient for the elevator.

"Numb," and from the incredulity in her tone he might have asked if water is wet or if she wants Jell-O again. His eyes roll slightly. Doors and drawers open and close. He's never seen the interior of this bedroom.

When she reemerges she has a pillow, a blanket and a book. Surprises him and puts the pillow under his head and the blanket up to his waist; he's not really cold, but it's a nice gesture and Soda wonders if he looks worse off than he feels. He has a high threshold for pain.

"The last time I coddled a man like this, he just died in my bed." Her voice is an ocean of cool, but her eyes spark.

_Threat or promise?_ His tooth shuts him up, except for a groan.

"Ah, the death throes."

And maybe he shouldn't laugh. Then he feels a need to say something to her, to make something right for her. But maybe he doesn't need to, maybe when you survive war and depression your unwanted husband dying two decades ago while having sex with you, maybe it's the best it will be. Maybe that's your happy ending. Maybe you can tell yourself that.

And lying on her couch watching her walk away, her bare feet light into the carpet, he wonders again what that would be like to experience that. Must feel like dying yourself.

"Anna…" He doesn't know what he needs to say and even if he did his tooth drowns out all thoughts.

"I'm gonna take something for my tooth, that alright?" And this time doesn't wait for permission before exiting the kitchen with water and picking up her newly prescribed bottle of pain killers off the dining room table, swallowing. "Thanks."

* * *

But that same part of his brain that causes _recklessness _is hot wired to the part that drives all night on gas station coffee and BBQ chips that stained his fingers and crumbled down his shirt before he stopped at a pay phone, eyeing the slit of dawn.

"Do you need someone to um, help take care of...? Yeah, I figured the county already came for…" Stops himself, how quick did T.P. go from being a 'him' to 'the body' or worse 'the remains.' "Naw. I'm in the area. What time should I be there? Sorry for callin' at this hour.

...I know, didn't think you'd be gettin' much sleep," and scratches the back of his neck orange.

It took a long time to clean the blood, the tissue and the brain matter like Jell-O. He blanches and is no longer used to gore and bleaches and drills out a few tiles while she goes to hardware store to pick up the replacements. She calls out from the living room, "nobody else would have thought about cleaning..."

And all he allowed himself to think is_ T.P. c'mon man, you couldn't have just hung yourself? _

It smelled like 1968 and now it smells, but this time of bleach. He inhales the fumes, pulls his shirt up so he won't inhale the rest.

His knees hurt.

* * *

For thirty minutes he sleeps on her couch and wakes to the clock on his phone. He readjust to the room and he looks at her, at her table that doesn't have a table cloth and is dust free and spotless and probably smells like lemon or pine, reading her book. His heart squeezes.

"I'm worried about Cash," he helped her being more open with her loves and fears which tend to get entwined.

Soda pulls himself into a semi-upright position, the pillow now resting against his shoulder blades.

"He won't have Curt at school next year. Who will look after him?" Anna said that Cash reminded her of Patrick and that made Soda remourn the time he missed with his son and love his son and his youngest grandson even more than that.

"Do you have an elevator and does it work?" Was her first, second and often last question she asked before this apartment. Cash loves pushing the buttons. When they visit Curt will take the stairs,taking them two, sometimes three at a time. Standing outside the elevator in his hoodie, arms crossed and a look of gleeful triumph when the door opens and his dad, stepmom and little brother appear.

"Beat ya," Curtis Nguyen crows. But he's the last person to enter the apartment and first to head for the door when it's time to go. Too stiff and formal, unlike Bobo's and Lola's. Anna does her best not to let it bother her. He's has no clue the life she's lived. Polite though, says yes and no ma'am.

Cassius Nguyen says goodbye in Vietnamese and Anna's heart swells.

_Look who's soundin' like a grandma,_ Soda wants to say, part teasing, part tender, _flirting almost. _But doesn't have a death wish.

"Hawk." His voice is straight, no-nonsense, "he'll look out for our Cash." Thinks about those boys and from that smile erupts a soft laugh and his head shakes back and forth."I dunno Anna, you ever imagine we'd be sittin' here in the middle of Tulsa casually talking about our grandkids?"

It's so out of the realm of all former possibilities that she doesn't hesitate to join him and her laugh enters his ears smoothly.

Even her laughter, smooth and light as it is, is held in place by melancholy. So Soda isn't surprised when he looks at her, the ceiling fan above, the soft hum of the blades and wonders if she still feels displaced, a stranger in this country. The way he does sometimes.

* * *

Doesn't know what he expected. Maybe some fucking people to show up at Parker's and help? Is that too fucking hard?

* * *

He opens his mouth, her thumb holding his bearded chin in place, slowly, she makes her way inside, her finger moves along his gum line. Feels the slight give of her finger, her knees open up just enough to fit pages 3 through 50 inside. He breathes heavier the deeper she pushes. His tooth doesn't hurt like before, but anticipation is skirting off the edge of a cliff and his fingers find her waist.

She's the only one who will understand how much he craves the agony because there, there is the ecstasy. That the reverse is also true, that at the galloping edge of happiness is anguish waiting to pull you under.

Bliss and annihilation locked in the same breath.

And there, there would be the release so much deeper than ordinary sex. Soda didn't know that sex could be that. That he could be so aware of his body every heated drop of blood, every scratch of hair, every stretch and contraction of every muscle, and feel like he was transcending it. Transcending himself. They had the power, _he had the power_, to take a painful sensation and alchemize into ecstasy. In the army where so much of his life was under the control of others, he could control this. He's not spiritual, not the way Pony is, nor devout like Mary though he converted for her and crosses himself before dinners and after suicides.

Being with Anna felt like punishment and resurrection.

This is how he is remembering, mouth open, sitting on her couch, feeling her on the hunt for his wounded tooth; this is how 1968 reincarnates inside 1999.

Back then they'd bring each other to climax, their mouths and bodies became earthquakes. When she went down on him it felt like being engulfed. When he panted 'take it' to her it sounded more like an offering than an order.

And what he wouldn't give right now to be consumed.

_ "Fuck." _He winces, his eyelids squeezing tighter.

She releases her finger off his tooth and he tastes it passively on his tongue while her other hand tightens around his thigh; inside in his mind she's wearing his boots pushing him hard into the ground. That's how they'd compromise, his body is her earth, dirty and pulsating.

His jaw aches but he won't show it, she reaches for her book that's lying spine side up. Two-Decades of Oklahoma dulled it's hypnotic edge, but her voice will still reach a place deep inside, when he slows down and lets it.

Pulls her out of his mouth, scrunches his nose and eyes. "What...?"

"Shh" She brings her damp finger to her lips, which move fast, "this reminds me of you," and her tone isn't cruel nor kind but just is; her lips move slow and slower still and his ears perk with curiosity.

"… _I murder what I most adore,_

_Laughing: I am indeed of those_

_Condemned for ever without repose_

_To laugh — but who can smile no more."_

These words are inside his brain, chewing.

"Hmm," he says, more to himself when she closes the book and looks at him. "That reminds you of me, huh?" Tries defiance through a smile but the curve of his mouth veers off. This loneliness of exposure is temporary. Anna can x-ray the darker realm of his psyche, helped him be unashamed. That her acceptance was not divorced from a degree of judgment made him feel, paradoxically, safer; she saw him for who he was and accepted him.

His blood turns electric with desires only part sexual.

He wants her and loves her too much to act on it and knows that her is both Mary and Anna._ This ain't who I need to be_, and feels half relieved and other half frustrated when he listens.

* * *

It could be 1968 which began in 1965 when his parents died, when he lost his first love. The year his kid brother could have died and two of his friends did within the hell span of a single week.

It extended into 1966 the year he turned eighteen and joined the army and stretched its razor nails into 1967 and Vietnam.

Then it was 1968.

For a while it had stopped being 1968. In 1978 he was reunited with his son, in 1984 his daughter was born, in 1993 another son was born and surviving, growing older, finally felt like a back flip in the rain.

Stealth, 1968 crept. Maybe it was Halloween,1992. It was the happiest he felt in, well, ever. Or since he was sixteen, in January, back when 1965 still meant 1965. Then darkness, a bead of sweat from a dream he can't remember; tidal waves: a brother in arms dead, a job loss, _this feeling_ looking at his beautiful family and wants to cry.

Except now the tears that came too easily at sixteen won't come. He feels it in his throat, thick, jammed in there. But his eyes stay dry.

He knew the night their love and bodies created Hawk that happiness couldn't, wouldn't last. The voice in his head screamed in octaves loud and soft: shouldn't. But he tried to hold on, as if he had earned it, as if he'd deserved it, as if 1968 never happened.

1968 tastes like gunmetal on a guy's tongue.

* * *

His hands are moths. Her wrists are flames. He feels her veins, her pulse, her bones and bites his lip.

His stare is almost as penetrating as hers, neither of them looks away from each other. They are in their clothes but he breathes a bit like he does after sex. Maybe like Phuc before he died.

His breath is hot on her throat. He won't know what will emerge any more than she will. _What I want I can't take from you_. _What I want you can't give me. _Relief and regret fills his chest.

"Bi_an_, all I feel is empty."

Her birth name surrounds them and he wasn't intending to call her that, but now mixing with their breaths, feels like a purpose. As if it's the only way he can convey the seriousness, the break from the norm, of his current situation.

He doesn't think she's satisfied with his answer. He's right. She's not. He isn't either. Sighs and tries to by sheer force of will change the swirling mass buried inside his chest into words that make some sort of sense. To explain these feelings that are so heavy but feel like they belong to someone else.

Unlike Pony's her books, which includes books on psychology, are neatly organized and stacked.

When she had a breakdown Soda helped her. Still, shadows and shadings of her depression color around them, the way children do long after they leave.

Soda will ask their son how's she doing and sometimes call her up out of the blue.

"Do I need a reason? Just callin' to see how's everything."

The books are her way of starving, fighting, understanding her own mind Soda realized. To remaster what once betrayed her.

She's good at probing, at pushing, at listening. Her hands carefully fold on her lap and his mouth opens.

* * *

Yeah, it is, it is too fuckin' hard sometimes.

* * *

With noon and emptiness his stomach rumbles. He needs to get going, for a lot of reasons. "I'm assumin' you washed your hand before you jammed it in my mouth? Ah, never mind, mouth's dirty enough as it is." The way he teases her has him thinking about his wife, but that's not Anna's style and after an unscripted flash she reminds him, coolly, that he heard the faucet running.

"Shoot, that don't mean nothin'." His voice turns authentic. "I know you're clean, hon," shifts his hands against his zipper.

"Soda." Her voice sterilizes his rib cage and he braces for the incision, but he doesn't flinch and leans towards her. "Is that why you won't allow a dentist to treat your tooth? So you'll feel something even if it's painful?" Her eyes flicker like 1968.

"Naw. Can't afford it, don't got the insurance, never mind the money to pay for it outright." Shrugs and puts his boots on. " 'Sides, if that's case, wouldn't have taken your meds." Does a quick nod towards the table, thanks her again.

She concedes with a smile that hints at stitches and more age lines than he remembers; and so tenderness, thick and deep, overwhelms him. _Are we old? _

Asks for another pill, there's absolutely no way he can be distracted by his toothache, not tonight, the cap brands his palm. He speaks slowly, looks her in the eye, "Anna, when I talk about myself now, feels like I'm talkin' about a stranger."

But he really does need to leave.

"It was real good talkin' with you, think it helped some" hates the desperation, so tries swagger, then sincerity takes over, "Now y_ou_ take care of yourself darlin' and if you need anything, ya know like Jell-O..." Smirks, which thanks to Tate Parker is already a grimace. "...holler." Adds, "thanks for the hospitality."

In the door frame they say goodbye and glance down at her hand on his rib cage, clawed and soft and still.

But look, his teeth bare down.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for reading the 1st chapter. The poem Anna recites is the George Dillon translation of L'héautontimorouménos by Charles Baudelaire. Hinton owns The Outsiders. _


	2. Look Up

Soda Curtis moves with the river, the Arkansas, polluted with the oil that made parts of this town wealthy and enviable floating besides. _But I'm not gon' let 'em catch me, no._ Really brings out his drawl and he's singing the rest of the way, windows rolled as his fingers tap against the steering wheel. He was an fantastic dancer though, back in the day at Cain's, he and Mary, on the dance floor. Which sometimes wasn't a dance floor at all, but a bar, but a car hood, but the mud wet and oozing beneath their feet. Soda shouted his wife's praises, _have y'all seen my Mary move_?! He used to say. Like a firefly, hot and electric and tiny, buzzing with energy that's too much for anyone but Soda, who's too chaotic anyways.

Along the side, tiny flags pushed in the ground for Memorial Day. A zoom of micro-patriotism. But it means nothing. Soda can't forget.

Couldn't fucking stand Tate Parker half the time, but he loved him. And Thomas Payne aka Tap, Cooper aka Charlie (but not as in VC,_ cherry ass_) Cooper and Mike Chavez who might of had a nickname but what is remembered is that he died of a heart attack while in the shitter and Philip Mihailovich aka Irish. And more. God, he loved all of them.

And of course Steve Randle, met him at Crutchfield, but really got to know him in elementary school, first or second grade, and best buddies ever since, and Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston and Keith Mathews aka Two-Bit. Soda could see himself in all of them and maybe it's because they could recognize parts of themselves in Soda. Johnny may have been the pet, but Soda, Soda was the center. And thirty five years later the center is still holding, more resilient than most people only given the litany of his experiences, but who didn't know him, would have expected, but still, still, it can be a struggle. You know?

He needs to get back. Makes the turn sharp, skirting on a red light by a tailgate and rolls past the Praying Hands, the ridges on the thumbs appearing like lips ready to speak before making his way downtown with it's Art Deco buildings to head north and home. Some kid cuts him, almost ramming into his truck and Soda shoots a middle finger, cusses like it will make a difference and wonders how the hell he and Steve survived these same streets; the way they burnt rubber like they had some place to go.

* * *

In the Walgreens parking lot it hits him like a spike who she is. Hasn't seen her in a couple of years, and before that even longer. Something's different though. Can't quite pin it down. She asks about his grandbabies, which surprises him (in a nice way) that she remembered Patrick's boys. She still thinks it's a riot he's sort of related to the Shepards, though she only knew of Tim. But this is just an excuse for her to brag that she's _gonna be a first time grandma soon. __No, they don't know the sex yet..._but she's _been_ _praying for a_ _boy_. She folds her hands together.

He mentions with a huge smile that _my middle one, my little girl_ is graduating today. _Junior High. Yeah, Rogers this fall_. He's been back, Pony's youngest daughter is in a lot of the plays and Darry's youngest son is the starting pitcher on the baseball team. Sometimes he and Mary catch a football game too. _No, they ain't doin' too hot, maybe they'll turn it around, though I bet Jenks will win State again. But hey, __gotta support the Ropers. Though heck it ain't like Jenks ever produced a J.J. Cale or nothing. _Course neither did Rogers. Cale graduated from Central. He adds.

_Look at that, never knew you were such an expert. _

How could any self-respecting Tulsan not know Cale who wrote Clapton's Cocaine and After Midnight?

_Remember how you could tell Buck's mood just based on what Hank Williams's song he was playing? _

_Buck, now how could I forget? _She snorts out a laugh and they chat about Buck, the man and his roadhouse.

Pauses for half a second before answering her next inquiry. Mary's_ doing good, working hard at her salon._ Hasn't completely given up yet on making east side Tulsa as cool as she is. When he asked her, just curious, if she'd ever considered moving back to L.A., after their kids are grown, or maybe traveling again, like how they used too. Course they'd do it right this time, in an RV, not wandering and barely surviving. But she says that Tulsa, Oklahoma is her home.

_How's everybody? _He asks. Not sure who in her life is alive or dead, not sure what category her folks fall under.

They talk a bit more, about the people they still have in common, which makes the conversation go by quickly. Though 'died' and 'locked up' comes up more than once, but mostly 'don't know.'

_Staying out of trouble?_ she teases like the answer can't possibly be no, like he ain't who he was/is.

He's agreeable and honest (this time) _yes'm_ and gives her a salute, shifting his bag to his other arm, to give her a grin too.

If she mentions something about his charm right now, it would have made his eyes roll internally, but he would have also thought about Sandy. How she once call him charming like a cuss or something. And it's amazing how the mind works like that, how something or someone lays like a shark at the murky bottom of the ocean that's called your memories, how one word yanks them back into being and into your flesh.

But she doesn't and Sandy remains under surface. Instead she says: _But don't think I wasn't aware that half the trouble Dallas got caught up in you was involved somehow._

Laughs, but can't deny. He_ lucked out_, his kids _ain't nothing like th_e _greasy hellion_ he used to be. Or, he thinks, the former junkie, which makes him look at his teen years with it's fights, drag races, rodeos and cheerful mayhem with a kind of nostalgia.

_Wait til your baby girl starts dating,_ she crows from experience.

For dramatic effect inhales a bit, between his teeth, the medication still kicking in. Sure, if Hazer was anything like her parents back in the day they'd be gearing up for a world of hurt, but Hazer more takes after her big brother.

Brings his hand up to his brow like a visor to block out the midday sun that shadows half her face. And as he does so, as he blocks out the sun, he thinks about how they were, and how they aren't that anymore. If, they ever were in the first place.

_But honest, how's life treatin' you these days?_

She doesn't think she's going to be able to retire until she's 70. It's strange, how seventy seems both so far off in the distance, but close enough to snatch you up. If death don't get to you first. He shivers, though it's May in Tulsa.

He _works at Randle's_ now.

_Like y'all did at the DX._ She says like nothing changed between '65 and '99.

His mouth turns a bit bitter. Steps back so one foot on the curb one foot on the gutter. His boot's toe pushing against one of the slits in the cover. The air heating up his tongue before he speaks again.

_Yeah_, he says like there haven't been other jobs and families and a war too, in between. But he's damn grateful for the work and hell it's a good gig, working on cars with his best friend. Steve's a good boss, an even better man. Though Soda don't want to be treated differently than the other guys, but Steve won't act like he's Soda's boss. Still knows his way inside a engine, still knows how to make her purr, can teach the younger guys Steve hired the same. He's not making the type of money he did before.

_Take it to Steve. You know he's gonna give you a better deal than anyone in town._ When she looks skeptical, he continues his sales pitch. _Steve's the best mechanic in Tulsa, built his business from the ground up._ With this, he speaks with unalloyed pride.

_Him and Evie they live close to where her mom is, off Utica_. Points in the direction, though she doesn't turn her head to see. _Mrs. Martin? She's getting by. _Doesn't add how Evie picks up drawers full of Rx for her mom at this same Walgreens.

Yeah, he knows it's wild that he ended up living in Randle's old place and for a spell Steve and Evie and their two boys lived in his old house.

So how is he?

Shrugs and smiles wistfully, shrugs his shoulders up, _surviving_, and brings his shoulders back down. _You know how it goes._ _Same as it ever is._

Flips his phone out by habit and that has her eyes wide and musing, _my, my, my,_ _look who's living large, only people I know with a cellphone are the big shots._

_Only people I know with a cellphone has a big shot older brother who gave it to him for Christmas._

She gives the sort of low whistle he gave once when he saw a cherry red stingray pull into the DX.

Tells her congrats on the grandkid again; _hope they do you right and give you that little boy you're_ _wantin'_. Then thinks about Hazer, _you'll do just fine with a little girl too._

She scoffs, _tell that to my daughter, will ya?_

_ Just be patient with your daughter._ Doesn't like lecturing so adds,_ I know you know that and I know it ain't just in your hands. _

_Take Care, Soda._

_You do the same. Nice catchin' up with you, Sylvia._

And yeah, he did, he loved 'em all.

* * *

Oklahoma as a face: the Panhandle on the west and the Tulsa on the east are the eyes are, Oklahoma City is the nose and the mouth is the stretch of border shared with Texas. The past four years were brutal ones; it started at 9:02 A.M. on April 19, 1995 with a Ryder truck and only a few weeks earlier on May 3, 1999 an F5 Twister landed a second punch right on the nose.

Whole state feels off-kilter. Then there's Tulsa, the state's eastern eye, not directly affected by these man and nature made calamities; but, those glass shards.

* * *

She dyed her hair. His grin's different too. He once had the type of grin that jumped out of his mouth. A grin wild, sweet, lopsided too, which only added to it's character and yes, it's charm. Now his grin is subdued, rougher around the edges. Though it's smaller, it holds more; annoyance and anger and melancholy alongside.

Lopsided grins are claimed by the young; his runs crooked.

It's strange, Mary made a big deal of it, got him a cane and a package of adult diapers, but turning fifty didn't feel any certain way. Not that he knew what turning fifty was supposed to feel like. His dad died at forty and looked and acted younger still and Darry, Darry who at twenty looked middle-aged is now fifty-four and looking and acting as young as he ever did, running in a marathon to benefit the hospital Cathy works at. Pony, the only one of them who is still in his forties, but he seems to be adjusting.

Which leaves Soda. Orphaned at sixteen, he helped raise his little brother and it wasn't easy, he wouldn't admit it, or rarely would, but Pony wasn't an easy kid with his nightmares and neediness though Soda recognized both of those qualities in himself too. Growing up, he looked to both his brothers, older and younger, but wished that Pony didn't share this burden.

He went to war and fathered a child at eighteen with a woman whose countrymen he was fighting, which is another word for killing. So, he's not really sure what fifty is supposed to feel like cause he sure as hell didn't understand what eighteen, never mind sixteen was supposed to feel like.

Chuck Berry comes through the radio and Soda loved Chuck, him and Jerry Lee Lewis especially. Elvis too, to his wife's later mockery. Could've busted his ear drums with how loud he cranked up the volume in Darry's old Ford. But in his own truck (still a Ford) quickly switches the station. It's hard sometimes, too hard, to listen to that music and remember how he used to be, when his grin could both shatter and light up this world, when all things felt possible.

In the mirror the midnight rider looks back, hard and worn, that bit of beard he'll be shaving when he gets home. Then he remembers, in October he'll be fifty-one.

* * *

There's more security this year, which means there are two uniformed policemen outside the door instead of the plainclothes one that would've spent the evening in his squad car, munching on Long John Silver's. There's talk about security guards, about video games, about Marilyn Manson, about prayers in school, not much talk about guns, but a month later the "our hearts and prayers" sign outside the school is gone and replaced with "Congratulations Class of '99!"

Yesterday they are eighth graders and at a Banquet Hall and dancing, or talking, watching, if they are there at all and not ditching. Boys in baggy polo shirts and baggier jeans that woooosh when they strut on the dance floor, a lot of them with curtain haircuts. They wrap their sweaty hands tight around girls with newly defined hips some of them in hip huggers and tight shirts, in sundresses with spaghetti straps.

They smell like Calvin Klein, like pizza and hot wings, like zit cream, like smoke, like fruit punch, like fuzzy navel, like hormones.

Girls wrap their arms around each other, form a centipede and sing-shout as if they're one-upping each other with the force of their enthusiasm.

_All around the world statues crumble for me_

_Who knows how long I've loved you_

_Everywhere I go people stop and they see_

_Twenty-five years old my mother God rest her soul!_

When they are juniors in high school, their teachers wheel in T.V.s and they'll watch the plane dive into the second tower. Some will serve in Afghanistan or Iraq, a few both, some marry spouses who serve. More endure scars, emotional and physical. One returns in a platinum coffin. For some, their twenties will be defined by the Great Recession, by addictions, and For Sale signs.

But that's their future. Now they are on the cusp of a new millennium, of high school, of endless possibilities and they sing; _IIIII just want to flyyyyyy._ Stretch their arms to the ceiling. And they look up.

* * *

Mary is there of course, so are Hawk and Patrick in his chinos and Oxford shirt. The eighth graders are only allowed 4 guests at their graduation and some of the parents threw a fit, but for Curtis, Hazer L. four guests is a perfect number.

The band strikes up, and the eighth graders: drooping, swaggering, confident, scowling, smiling, just there, barely, form two lines and walk into the gymnasium for the last time.

Before, Hazer and her mom had a fight, Hazer told her mom it's _embarrassing_ that Mary wears the same rock t-shirts as her daughter, sometimes the exact same shirt. That she_ should dress her age. _Which Mary and Hazer both know is gonna be 50 this fall. The two of them stand there in the Curtis (used to be Don Randle's) living room. An icon of Mary, Jesus's (not Hazer's and Hawk's) mother looks down at them, she was picked up at a thrift store.

_Embarrassing?! You know what's embarrassin' Hazer Curtis? Not knowing what a cool mom you got!_ When Mary Curtis feels something she shares it uncensored with the world. And she felt hurt. Tells Hazer she's lucky her mom ain't like all the other _boring as shit mothers._ Turns the volume back up on General Hospital.

When they go at it, Soda'll intervene. Though he won't tolerate Hazer's mouth, or rolled eyes, but will slide a _hon _on low in his wife's direction when she's on the precipice of saying something she won't be able to take back. He's their peacemaker that way.

Though there was this one time: Mary and Hazer were arguing when out of the blue Soda grabs Hawk's hand and said fed up:_ c'mon, we're gonna blow this Popsicle stand. _

Hawk then bursts out laughing, his little green Mohawk head shaking, _Popsicle stand?! this ain't no Popsicle stand! _ Mary and even Hazer laugh, with Hawk, who has a laugh like his daddy did when he was five. But Soda answered, _yup, we're gonna bust outta this joint, hot rod, it's gettin' too crazy in here for me. _

They took a spin in his truck, Hawk sat on his Dad's lap and honked the horn and steered while Soda controlled the pedals.

Mary thinks she's over this latest tussle when she sprinkles powder sugar on the French toast but she sprinkles angry and by the time the toast looks like winter she can't help but asking her daughter in a voice dripping with sarcasm if her plain black shirt meets her approval. Hawk's wearing his new t-shirt, a silk screen dragon that tells everyone: I'm a Kindergarten Leader.

Soda and Mary are young for grandparents but at Hawk's kindergarten graduation (Miss. Avery gave them all coupons for DQ along with their dragon t-shirts) they were the oldest parents there. Hawk keeps them young and makes them feel old.

_Hey Dad!_ Hawk's wearing his Dragon t-shirt at his sister's junior high graduation and he runs down the bleachers, almost knocking a woman over. Soda bends down and grins and kisses his little boy, before instructing firmly: _watch where you're going. _Makes him apologize to the woman.

For his children his grin is largely unmitigated by how he feels about himself.

* * *

Now Mary watches her daughter in a black dress her legs freshly shaved, but showing little dark bumps of in-grown hair, if you gawk like a perv or something. Her hair pulled back in a tight pony tail. Wet, her curly dark brown hair is straight and black. She has on fresh canvas white sneakers on, (the ones with black duct-tape oceans are in her closet) and her family watches her walk down the aisle formed by folding chairs, streamers wrapped around the metal legs.

In the cheering and the clapping,_ that's my baby!_

Hazer hopes it wasn't her mother shouting like a psycho. But of course it was. It always is. She can't wait for this shit to over. But then she remembers after the summer it will be high school, 9th grade and English in the dungeon.

* * *

As for Soda, his arms wrap around his wife and he's squeezing and feels her back and ass press into him like home. Feels her hips sharp inside the crooks of his arms.

He's content with letting out a celebratory whistle. It's one he and his buddies and the Shepard gang used a long time ago, before Soda and eventually Curly served in Vietnam, before Soda and Angela Shepard Jones screwed each other, long before he and Angela shared a grandson.

When he thinks about it, though he tries not too, even though it was a mutual decision, getting with Angela was a mess. Not that he felt real friendly towards Tim and Curly back then, but they all knew each other and fucking Angela was perilously close to screwing Steve's cousin. Violated some arcane but sturdy code of his. But then again, by the time he and Angela had sex Soda had violated so many of his moral codes in Vietnam that this felt more like a revert to the norm than anything wrong.

Though he was stoned and in a bad way when he got with Angel, maybe he's got a type: petite and dark haired. Fearless too, though in different ways. In high school he didn't have a type but good looking and female, and after that, blonde. Unlike Two-Bit's preference they didn't even need to be stacked, though shit, he ain't complaining when they were, 'specially when they wore them low cut blouses that hinted at their tits and got them a detention and a trip to the girl's locker room to put one of those bag like gym shirts on.

But when he thinks about it, those women, Mary, Anna, Angela, all had gone through so much in their lives. What was it about him that drew them in? What was it about them that he was attracted to?

Then there's Sandy. He loved her. Sure that love was 9/10ths pup, 1/10th wolf, but it was there, he felt it.

_Did they let you see it?_ He once asked her softly, decades ago. About her baby.

Her blue eyes shut, _why are you doing this to me? Are you trying to get back at me?_

His guts iced and sharp, dropped._ No, No_, he wasn't trying to hurt her. Though since he came back from that war that seemed all he was capable of: hurting.

He just thought...He thought maybe she was the only one in the entire world who might know what he's going through. That maybe he understood what she went through too, though he thinks it's different, a whole lot worse for the mom. How it feels not to feel whole anymore because there's a part of you cut off from yourself, out there. In the world. Which is far darker than he could ever imagine. Just like his brothers as much as they strived, can't understand his combat life, his brother vets can't get this. They may have left part of their flesh in 'Nam, but their flesh didn't have ten fingers, ten toes that curled just so, big brown eyes, slightly elfin ears, a heartbeat and a name. His name, too.

_I'm sorry Soda_, Their _situations ain't the same. _Tells him,_ adoption isn't a tragedy for everyone_.

So in this too, Soda Curtis is alone.

He thinks: You ever think about maybe changin' up your perfume Sandy? I dunno, you've been wearin' the same scent since we were sixteen. Ain't it time to move on?

That's the bizarre thing, people talk about 'moving on' but what they really mean is going backwards, going back to who you were before.

And anyways his wasn't a path, or even like chutes and ladders, but a swirl of darkness and light that seemed to form it's own universe with him spinning in the off-center. That as resilient as he was, (what the hell did that mean anyway?) the past could be even more resilient.

But back to 1965, when on New Year's Eve Darry was out, Soda launches a few firecrackers in the backyard, his dad, his Okie from Muskogee dad, who dreamt of becoming a cowboy puts on Frank Sinatra and _Fly Me to the Moon._ Ponyboy, embarrassed by his parents' tipsy displays of affection, or maybe still secretly believing in moon men at thirteen, or maybe captivated by the night, looked up at the sky long after the firecrackers stopped and Frank stopped and only the stars remained.

His fingers are in his mouth and he lets out a whistle, low and long with a zing at the end. He looks up, at the rafters, at a ConGRADulations balloon that flew out of someone's hand and is days away from deflating, at the industrial ceiling fans spinning in their cages; at the lights.

* * *

_A/N: I know this chapter is a bit weird and meandering and if you made it to the end thank you! The song on the radio is Midnight Rider by The Allman Brothers Band. The song at the banquet hall is Fly by Sugar Ray. The center holds line is a reference to 'the center cannot hold' in W.B. Yeats' The Second Coming. And Jenks won the State Championship that year. ;) J.J. Cale is a musician. Cain's is Cain's Ballroom a legendary music venue in Tulsa. The praying hands is a famous sculpture..._

**'Scuse me, what the sort of fresh hell is this?** _"Hazer told her mom it's embarrassing that Mary wears the same rock t-shirts as her daughter, sometimes the exact same shirt."_

That makes it sound like I'm the Grinch and my daughter is what's her name, the little girl? Uh Cindy-Lou, Cindy-Lou that's right. And I'm a tip-toeing into her room at night and snatching her clothes right off her. That's not how it happened at all. I spilled some Totino's Pizza roll sauce all over my shirt (totally worth it by the way) and needed to wash my shirt and figured might as well do the rest of laundry while I'm at it. Hazer had her clothes still in the dryer, for at least eight hours, but that's not neither here nor there. Any how, as I'm doing my daughter a favor and neatly folding her clothes and I just happen to notice A Dead Kennedys t-shirt. Doesn't my Hazer have great taste in music? And I also just happened to notice that the shirt fit me perfectly and not to sound conceited or nothing but I looked damn good in it, especially with these tight jeans I had on. That's how it happened, not that I owe an explanation or nothing.

_A/N: okay, well that was obviously a very worthwhile interruption. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate it so much. :)_


	3. Blue

_A/N: There is a flashback scene involves sexual favors in exchange for drugs. Mature content. Indulgently long a/n at the end. _

* * *

The June heat is a sleeve pulled too long. Though in his bathroom he is cool and naked, dripping soapy water into the bathmat, it squishes under his feet while the towels remain fluffy and untouched on the rack.

Claws paths through condensation and breath, stares at his reflection. At the widening strips of his face looking back at him.

This is his tongue pushing against the roof of his mouth. These are the ridges like ribs, or like the bones of a skeleton, pressing against his tongue. Decades ago a needle lacerated it. Now it's like anyone's, except for a slight scar that is felt more than seen. Where there is violence in his mind, his body sometimes wags like a dog after it's master. Another way of saying he's a man of action who bleeds into impulsiveness.

Another way of saying he could yank this fucker out.

But tonight common sense is a bandage wrapped tight and he walks into his bedroom, still dripping. His tooth still hurting, though intact.

* * *

Ain't that Billy? Pony's brothers follow the quick turn of his head with their own to some college kids, all but one in a baseball cap, gathered around a highboy and two pitchers and one of them Darry Curtis's middle son.

Gonna invite 'em over?

Darry shakes his head with his whiskey neat. Shit, Soda. You know the rules.

Though if the guys came over his dad would buy them a round; these brothers have a tradition and catch up with each other and no children, wives, significant others, or friends are allowed to join them. They're talked about. Sometimes they meet in Darry's rec room, with most of his kids grown and out of the house he has plenty of space, tonight was Soda's choice and they're downtown. That run-in with Sylvia last week caused nostalgia to course through Soda's veins like oil gliding down the side of saddle. Revitalization is a decade away. Now it's the brown affect of a sepia photo. A feeling of dust, not enough to make you choke, or stain your clothes, but an itch in the nostrils.

It's hot, the heat of bodies that the air conditioner can't overtake, even with it's wheeze out of dusty vents. There's an Elk mounted on the wall and a mechanical bull whose spring is in bad need of oiling.

Get a load. Darry leans back, the chair croaking under him. David's talkin' about working together. He'll design a building and I'm supposed to build it. _For_ _him_. Says it'll be a great experience _dad. _He takes a chomping bite of his pulled pork.

The first time his son-in-law called him Dad, he thought he misheard, before remembering that no one but his brothers call him 'Dar.'

There's a table next to the highboy, six women between their mid and upper twenties. Four of them are blonde. Eyes talk, invitations are exchanged and the guys make their way over.

One husky guy moves towards the boldest looking one. The one with the thickest, longest lashes. Her boldness rubs on him like a stick of glue. What's your poison?

He looks early twenties, nothing new, frat boys flipping out their Daddy's credit cards and flirting with her. Trying to pick her up like she's the last kitten out of the box. A decade later they'll approach her like she's the first cougar in their cage.

So far he's not like the pervs who think her tits are welcome mats to stomp their greedy hands on. It's why she carries mace.

Wants to laugh in his face and ask him w_here are Opie and Aunt Bee, Gramps?_ Should tell him that he can't handle her _poison_. But if he's asking her drink of choice it's a Moose Drool Brown Ale, which isn't sold in Oklahoma so she's already shit out of luck. Before she speaks her friend leans over, her hands cupped over mouth to shout, WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

Bill Curtis, and extends his hand. A beat later the friend returns the handshake. And after another pause she does too. The guys offer to buy a round.

Moose Drool woman picks the cheapest pitcher of beer and jumbo nachos. For my girls. She gestures towards the other women.

But Bill does get a hard appreciative pat on the ass before he and the guys head out to a sports bar. She prefers tighter asses. His is too fleshy, feels like kneading over-yeasted dough when she slaps it. Not that her own don't have a nice bit of _ooh_ to it. But at least in her tight jeans and high heel boots she knows how to advertise it. Her blonde hair cascading down her back frames it like a picture. If you got it, flaunt it. And if you don't, fake it and flaunt it anyways. That's her motto.

What? Moose Drool woman says to another friend and gives her a pacifying wink, I never turn down free beer and food, how do you think I got this figure in the first place, babes? With her fingers she draws a defiant, curvy silhouette in the air.

Tonight's about having fun, right? Moose Drool woman continues, her voice slapping down the look of nunish disapproval from her friend. She raises her glass and the sound of clinking and laughing follows. Hers rolls out like a soft underbelly of a gentle tide. Like the ocean's pearls, her teeth glisten.

Darry points a patriarchal figure at Ponyboy. What the hell's happening with Paige? You and Aimee are really gonna let her go to where? _Bosnia_? He pronounces it like chewing tobacco is lobbed in his mouth, baws nee ah.

I want to feel something, something, I don't know, _more_. The woman who asked Billy's name laments.

Feel? Like what? What are we talking about here? An anal fissure? Moose Drool woman asks. What do you want to_ feel?_ Wipes a bit of nacho cheese sauce off her lips. The orange a radioactive shade.

_No, Val, _I want...I want to know I'm having sex when I'm having it. I want to feel it. And I don't mean anything kinky. He's so quick about it I don't even know it's begun before it's over.

Relax, I'm teasing you. I get it. The other women are certain that Val's lying, on both marks. What I want, is my man to get _rough_ with me. Val speaks like her wants and gets are never far apart.

Hey Soda, cat's got your tongue? 'S everything okay, man?

Huh? What Pone?

Darry and Pony exchange a look and Soda used to be so good at reading people, especially his brothers, but he can't. Not now.

Pony, Soda says out of the blue, shooting up from his slouched position with urgency; when did you and Aims know y'alls marriage was on the rocks?

This look he reads just fine.

* * *

_He is beautiful and disheveled as if the two qualities cannot be split from each other without slicing him alongside. His hair, long and knotted, in need of a good brushing. Gives him an animalistic otherwise childlike quality and he feels the meaty fingers move inside his hair, breaking through the knots of which there are many._

_He carries a knife in his back pocket. The last time he used it was to slice open a stubborn bag of stale Cheerios. The stereo is on, not loud enough to get a noise complaint, but loud all the same. Baba O' Riley comes on, but he feels it in his bones as Teenage Wasteland. _

_He lost weight so his jeans ride down, showing off his hips. His arms are junkie arms, branded with needle marks but if there is a part of him that is prideful it could be this, not covering up his arms. So in this, he is not bearing false witness._

_He is sweating on his neck and the fingers move down, yank his hair like a leash on a dog. He feels those same fingers on his nape. Pressing down hard. _

_He wants to make a sound, not in fear or in pain but in longing for what awaits on the other side but holds off and exhales a bullish grunt, his nostrils flare._

_With a sort of competition he notices that the man isn't that large, this way at least, which he sees between his eyes that are closing, that are ordered closed, though he doesn't really need to be ordered. He does it by his own volition._

_It's different in the bathrooms, anonymous, but this man pays better and he's always had a practical mind too, even though he flunked math._

_In his dreams later, this is the moment when everything changes, where he bares his teeth and when his anger and rage, of which he has plenty, unleashes. This is his 'if only' moment._

_And like that, the moment is over._

_He made a deal and a man, even an addict and a thief, is only as good as his word, as his mouth. _

_In retrospect he will feel something more akin to self-disgust but now he feels a tremendous gratitude for this, for this man who gives him this ability to take care of his family. A man who can't take care of his family ain't no man at all, it what he heard his father say to his mother, the year she got a job working at a factory. _

_In reflex he finds himself nodding in agreement._

_Yes, yes. What is he?_

_His eyes squeeze tight though underneath they roll. But the voice that stands high above him, which is detached and yet strangely human changes the script they are used to._

_What is he?_

_His tongue is sharp and bitter but in the end pliable and he repeats what the man says. _

_But what kind?_

_A dirty kind, a junkie kind. The kind that would do this. That is this. _

_There is now exhaustion in his voice. He recognizes in it the malleable complaint his brother once gave when his back rubs were too light._

_There is also purpose in it and he has a talent for it and his tongue with that little stud offers a sensation of pleasure. And knows with a cold calculation that this will give what he is offering more value._

_He is offering his tongue, his mouth, his throat, his ability to take._

_He is on his knees. The way he landed when his older brother tried to teach him acrobatics and he'd lose his balance and land in the grass. _

_He inches his neck forward at the position of giving, of taking; and he feels his bare toes scrape against the floor and in this moment he wonders if he should have worn socks, he doesn't want to get tetanus. Later, he will deny this thought because it will mean that he is thinking and not as desperate or rock bottom as he would have liked to believe._

_Slick with spit and friction and he sees her, on the floor, on her knees, mouth open like his own, but pregnant with his child and a monstrous red, then crimson wet fog fills his eyes. But it must be in his mind because in his ears are the grunts and groans of unexpected pleasure which tingles in the back of his own head, too. _

_He recognizes those grunts, recognizes that he is the instrument of the man's pleasure. That he is an instrument. But he can assert himself and __turn that pleasure into pain, turn his teeth into blades, into blood, that will flow into his mouth, and drip down his chin and body and onto the floor. _

_ But he likes the power, to have some sort of control, even if the control is not over his life, or his habit, but the control over another man. Over his pleasure. _

_I'll take what you give; he had told the man, spoken in a voice as cold, as void as his face. But maybe there was a sneak bravado in it, a challenge. Maybe there was a desperation in it too. That bravado and desperation are two sides of the same coin. _

_His mouth, his mouth it is not so different from a tourniquet that pulls tight around his arm, around his wife's, and before around the wounded, though sometimes they were dead too. Though his mouth doesn't stay still, but moves, as if it is alive, it's own organism, receiving another._

_For a second the rush he feels overtakes his need, his primal need for the dope that will flow through his veins. The justification for what he is doing; though maybe not the reason he is taking this man for the first time inside his throat, taking him with such hunger, the way his abdomen sucks in, though he hardly eats these days. Then as quickly as it arose that feeling ends. And he returns to his workman equilibrium, with a different sort of power, with the power of detachment. _

_He doesn't gag and his face shows no emotion as he takes what he's earned._

_As he rises he feels a pride in supporting his family, in providing what they need to live. He does it so she won't have to, and in this maybe he is a better provider than most. She doesn't know this is how it happens, but she's grateful, and that is its own reward and he holds it along with their smack with a stoic dignity._

_And he does this because he's an addict and this is the easiest way, the best way to get his fix which allows him to stumble for another day._

_..._

_He pushes himself into the rag towel's harsh fibers and as much as possible erases his face._

* * *

But this, Soda can talk to his brothers about. Says it's all on him, not Mary. Which his brothers know might be true, might not be, and Pony thinks lands in the middle, but taking the fall for his woman is in Soda's blood so there's no use contradicting.

These brothers talk, listen. Without warning Soda slaps his hand hard on the table. Forces a command back into his voice. Now enough about me. What's goin' on with Paiges again?

But figures, I enjoy getting spanked. And the woman who says it pulls herself back a bit. Into her chair. That's Val effect, forcing you to confess your dirty, dark secrets. Light spankings, the woman adds. But it isn't enough to block the look of judgment from another woman at their table.

That's when Val sticks her neck out. Don't worry I'll use a feather, she winks at the first woman. You can watch. She says sardonically to the other woman. Says to the first woman, It's all good honey. And when she says it, it almost feels halfway true, or at least a lie worth believing.

No, what I want, Val lowers her voice to a whisper between titillation and confession, leans in and the other women follow. From the outside they look like a wet clay cup folding in on itself. Val's stark white teeth bare down as about to bite through the flesh of a deer she used to hunt and clean as a girl.

_I want to be devoured. _

Ready to head out? Pony asks, already standing. Some bozo put George Strait on the juke box. A twang of a headache hits between his skull.

Darry rises, reaching back for his wallet, no matter how much his brothers tell him not too. Soda stays put.

They're gonna start a trivia game soon, think I'm gonna stay a while, might join in. Soda gives his brothers a sigh. Mare knows I'm out. Doesn't add that Mary's going to assume he spent the entire time with his brothers.

Darry eyes the brown liquid in Soda's glass.

Soda returns the favor then aims his stare at his oldest brother. His eyes are the same shade as his drink, the same flatness, then the look he gives his brother turns hard.

Coke. Soda says tight and with a shot of menace. You saw her pour it. Ain't gonna turn to wine or whis_key_ in front of your eyes. All I'm drinkin' tonight is some good ol' fashion Coca-Cola.

After those nights when he was unemployed he can no longer say that drinking ain't his vice and something something about teaching old dogs new tricks.

Maybe we ought to stay? Pony offers. But doesn't want his brother to think he's being babysat. It _is_ trivia night, between the three of us we'll crush everyone here. Long as they have a music category. And to that Soda gives a twitch of a smile.

Naw. I'm good. Y'all got my number and can check up on me. He tries to push it down but a soft bitterness snakes through his voice and out of his grin aimed at his younger brother. The grin is not returned and Soda, one hand on the back of his neck looks down at the scratched up table.

You sure you got enough for a cab? Darry's voice, concern, lack of trust hits hard.

...

They say their goodbyes. Soda's hugs and back slaps are extra hard, his handshakes extra tight by way of apology, which are accepted by his brothers.

But mostly wanting something, someone, to hold onto.

* * *

Elvin Bishop graduated from Will Rogers High School and there's a few whoops and cheers from the crowd when Soda gets that one right. It's an easy game, the theme Oklahoma lore and legends.

The crowd is thinned. You can hear the air-conditioner, the skinned-cat noise of the metal spring from the underside of the mechanical bull, the spring located where the sheath would be.

Against a wall, a rancorous game of darts.

Playing with them, teasing at their bad aim, taking well-supplied shots for bulls-eyes like a boss, a blonde haired woman, tits like mushroom clouds. When she turns she reveals an ass like a prized mare jumping a fence.

Soda stands up and walks on a collision towards her. Her jeans so tight they appear painted on. Her eyes are blue prisms caged behind lashes like cat o'nine tails.

And then moves past her, past the inflatable pen where the bull is kept and through the flashing red EXIT. Drives for a little while and tries to be quiet as possible when he sneaks back into his house. Places the jumbo bucket of peanuts he won on the kitchen counter. Checks on Hawk and Hazer. Goes back and makes sure the deadbolt is locked. Looks at his wife in her bed, _their bed,_ he reminds himself. Runs a finger softly from the outside of her eye down her cheek before leaning over and giving her a kiss on her lips. In his clothes, everything on, including his boots, looks up at the ceiling and tries to fall asleep.

* * *

Later, comes back by himself.

Orders a drink, takes the complimentary peanuts by the handful and makes a few jokes with the bartender, who remembers him from trivia few nights ago. Take a quick scan of the room. The room spins, first outside than inside his head, before it lands.

She's back, that blonde woman, playing a game of darts by her lonesome

Nice aim

The voice is stripped raw

It starts at the base of her neck, tingles down her spine, and she'll turn around.

* * *

Fall is here, the corrosive oranges, reds, golds and browns of earth, symphonic before they're plucked off branches by winter's elegiac chord.

With an injured tooth there's no use tugging on it, letting it be held in the socket only by a single nerve, fibrous and blood red. Val's pregnant.

* * *

_A/N: WHEW. :) This story brings together two storylines I've hinted in other stories. In The Visit I've hinted that Soda engaged in sex acts for drugs. More importantly it's the first public introduction of Soda's youngest daughter. I had the idea of this affair for about two-years but I've never been able to figure out how to get the ball rolling. They've been stealth characters in my stories for a while. In Ch. 7 Tommy's Party from Slice of Life the cheating is the reason Hazer is hostile towards her dad. **Serenity's** actually the sister Hawk Curtis keeps on referring to in 'Arrested.' :)_

_And if you do read Arrested, which takes about a decade later, you'll know that Mary & Soda eventually do get back together. While in my heart I always thought after a separation and A LOT of therapy they'd reconcile, as a writer I hesitated explicitly putting that into Arrested because I was afraid of being trapped in that scenario. Especially when I'm SO uncertain about my writing & characters. And there have been many times since I published Arrested that I doubted my story, doubted them getting back together, thought it was too fairy tale-ish. And doubted my ability to write it, which is why it's taken me this long to even broach the topic. And for me, THAT'S the harder but more vital story to tell and the one I hope I write with justice & empathy. _

_Please forgive me for doing this to Mary, I love her but I knew from the moment I had the idea of Val & Serenity that this had to happen._

_S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. The Who own Baba O'Riley. Andy & Aunt Bee are references from The Andy Griffith show. _

_Moose Drool is a particular type of Montana brewed beer._

_Thank you so very much. __This is a slightly different writing style for me with this chapter, so I appreciate you sticking with it/me. :) _


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